The brightly lit stage of OGN APEX Season 3 Overwatch exploded with more games in Seoul, South Korea as some of the best teams in APEX fought to stay in the winners bracket. Afreeca Freecs Blue cracked Meta Athena like an egg for an easy sweep, while reigning champions Lunatic-Hai was dealt a blow to the head as Kongdoo Panthera slammed them directly into the loser bracket.

Meta Athena vs. Afreeca Freecs Blue

Map 1: Oasis (Control)

Map 2: King's Row (Assault/Escort)

Map 3: Hanamura (Assault)

Meta Athena is often praised for being innovative and talented, but against the likes of Afreeca Freecs Blue, they were lumped into the dust like the rest of the victims. The results had very little to do with how well or poorly Meta Athena played, but how well AFB played spoke miles for this set. Jeong "Recry" Taek-Hyun demolished the Meta Athena lineup on Soldier 76 on Oasis, while AFB's Bae "DongHyun" Dong Hyun and Yoo "lucid" Jun Seo shined brightest on the rest of the set for both King's Row and Hanamura. They played D.Va and Ana respectively, able to defend against any dive or attempt to kill AFB's DPS players. DongHyun's D.va nullified almost every assault attempt made on Recry and Jeong "ArHaN" Weon-Hyeop while lucid's Ana kept them alive and used sleep dart with high efficiency, taking apart the offense and the defense. Meta Athena, crushed, proceeded to fall to the loser bracket.

Kongdoo Panthera vs. Lunatic-Hai

Map 1: Lijiang Tower(Control)

Map 2: King's Row (Assault/Escort)

Map 3: Volskaya Industries(Assault)

Map 4: Dorado (Escort)

Kongdoo Panthera impressed everyone going into APEX Season 3, and the first clashes of Lijiang Tower proved how hard fought this set might be as a long 2-1 showcased Lunatic-Hai's suburb teamwork and a resting fighting spirit by KDP. After KDP called for an immediate tactical pause to regroup, they turned the tables by taking Lunatic-Hai's momentum, and flipped it over by bulldozing through their defense, and putting a half to Lunatic-Hai's push, evening the series out to 1-1. After winning Volskaya Industries put KDP on match point with a 2-1 score. With Lunatic-Hai's back to the wall, they put the hurt onto the Kongdoo Panthera squad and stopped their payload before point C, and pushed their own payload almost up to that point with a sizable timebank. All signs pointed to a map five of the series but members of Lunatic-Hai got overeager, over-extended into KDP territory and got themselves killed, which ended any momentum they had left and allowed KDP to hold them off the payload entirely and take the series 3-1. That shut down any claims that KDP was overrated and only went undefeated in the group stages because of weaker opponents, having now toppled the reigning champions.